He coordinator of the Livestock and Meat Table and former president of Argentine Rural Confederations (AVE), Chiesa Dartrecognized that meat consumption “is going to go down quite a bit” in 2024 and could even be below 40 kilos per year per personbecause of the drop in purchasing power and the lower production.
“Today I think that we are at 45 or 46 kilos per inhabitant per year. Today we slaughter almost 14 million head and there is no 13 million to slaughter in 2024. If exports gain momentum, which I hope will happen, consumption will drop well below 40 kilos,” she said this morning in dialogue with Radio Continental.
In that sense, he stated that after a year with “a lot of price tension”everything indicates that in 2024 “there will be more”.
“Was a year marked by export. We are going to end up with almost record numbers, although also we export a lot of meat to China that it was cow and bone, and not the quality meat and added value that we should have,” he reviewed the year that is closing.
Domestic meat market: what expectations are there for 2024
Regarding the domestic market, he pointed out that “it does not have the capacity to absorb any price increase”.
“The market reacts by bringing meat to normal market values and yet, then she has to take them back because when she arrives at the counter with those prices, Doña Rosa cannot validate them,” he explained.
In that sense, he indicated that, while before “the meat behaved in a totally inelastic way” and “the big increases did not alter consumption”, today they do.
Chiesa pointed out that ranchers “are hopeful” after emerging from the droughtalthough he indicated that the latest increase in withholdings -which, in the case of meat, rose to 15%- left a “bitter taste”.
“Everyone expected us to stay the same until the economy readjusts. Regional economies were hit by the buoyant axis. And there are incomprehensible things like, for example, with the egg where they increase the withholdings and, at the same time, they remove the import tax. “It’s crazy,” he said.
Finally, he questioned that the new government organization chart follow without having a ministry for agricultural issues.
Source: Ambito
